'Beach House Sheriff' under federal, state investigation over jail food money

Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin says that he is under investigation by federal and state authorities.

Entrekin told AL.com on Friday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General and the state Ethics Commission are conducting separate investigations into the way he has handled public money allocated to feed inmates in the Etowah County jail.

He said in a telephone interview that he was first contacted by the agencies a "couple weeks ago," and that he is complying with their probes.

"The federal [DHS] OIG is looking at it, they're doing an investigation, so is the Ethics Commission," Entrekin said. "They're looking at the food bill, they've asked for some documents from me ... My lawyer provided them records."

Entrekin declined to describe the records his lawyer handed over, other than to say that they are related to the inmate-feeding funds and some of them are "contracts."

The two agencies declined to confirm or deny that they have launched investigations into Entrekin's actions, which they said is in keeping with their standard protocols for handling such inquiries.

"As a matter of policy, DHS OIG does not confirm or deny investigations," Arlen Morales, a spokeswoman for the DHS OIG, said via email Monday.

"I can't give you any information related to that at all," Thomas Albritton, executive director of the Alabama Ethics Commission, said via telephone Monday. "We just don't comment on possible cases one way or another."

Entrekin said that both investigations are focused on his management of the funds for feeding inmates in the Etowah County jail, which he oversees as sheriff. Some of that money is allocated by the federal government to feed the scores of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees housed in the jail.

In March, AL.com reported that Entrekin personally kept more than $750,000 worth of money allocated by local, state and federal government sources to feed the inmates in his jail. In September he and his wife bought a beach house in Orange Beach for $740,000.

Donald Rhea, Entrekin's Gadsden lawyer, told AL.com during a brief telephone interview Friday that he was unwilling to answer any questions.

But later Friday, Rhea wrote a letter to Etowah County District Attorney Jody Willoughby calling on him to request that "the State Bureau of Investigation" or "the appropriate investigatory entity" launch another investigation, this time into new allegations that Entrekin had sex with underage girls in the early nineties.

AL.com published a story on those allegations - which are under investigation by the Oneonta Police Department - Monday morning, and Rhea reiterated the request for an investigation into them in a press release he emailed to members of the press later that day.

"Sheriff Entrekin stands ready to meet with investigators with the State Bureau of Investigation and the Attorney General's office and such other impartial or appropriate persons as are assigned to investigate this claim," Rhea wrote in the Monday release.

"He stands ready to answer any and all questions. He stands ready to cooperate fully and completely in the investigation that, hopefully, will begin immediately. That is what innocent people do."

Rhea's Monday letter also included a call for a state agency to launch an investigation into how the claims that Entrekin had sex with underage girls emerged more than two decades after the incidents allegedly happened.

"We further expect the State Bureau of Investigation and the Alabama Attorney Generals office to investigate the sequence of events and circumstances surrounding the bringing of this complaint," the letter states.